It's been an up and down week for libraries in West Virginia. Although the State Legislators agreed to maintain library funding at the current level in the budget bill that they adopted, the Governor used line item veto to reduced library funding in the category Grants to Public Libraries by $417,444 and in the category Libraries – Special Projects by $55,200. There were 55 items in the budget that were adjusted by the Governor, so libraries were not the only agencies to face reductions. For the Mary H. Weir Public Library, this means a cut in state funding of approximately $6,110 when we were already facing a nearly $12,000 increase in costs from the state retirement board. The new fiscal year doesn’t start until July, and when it does, our library will have approximately $18,000 less to work with than we have now.
Copies of the Legislature's bill and the Governor's veto are available on the website of the West Virginia State Budget Office at http://www.wvbudget.gov/
